Nonparametric Evaluation of Total Factor Productivity and Efficiency in Iran’s Airline Industry

The main purpose of this research is to evaluate the nonparametric productivity and efficiency of airline transportation companies in Iran. To meet this ends, the data of 12 companies in the passenger-transportation sector over the periods of 2011-2016 and the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method were used. The findings of this study indicate that the average technological efficiency of production, scale efficiency changes, and pure technical efficiencies changes during the study period increased by 0.08, 0.06 and 0.02% respectively. While the technical progress with a decrease of 5.4 percent has led to a reduction of 4.3 percent of the productivity, the deviation of the results is due to the fact that part of the reduction in the productivity was offset by other three channels. In addition, the average management efficiency in the transport and transportation sector was 0.986, which is 1.4% lower than the optimal level. Also, the results of the research indicate that downtrend of productivity index in a number of airline companies is due to technological changes and changes in management efficiency, but management efficiency was less important.